Now this is how it started: THE ILX 1980s ALBUM POLL RESULTS!!

Much as I love Songs to Remember, love it the most in lots of ways, Cupid & Psyche 85 is so far ahead of it. Green didn't have to sing about Derrida once he'd found a way of making his records deconstruct themselves even as they dazzle and shine.

I don't know anything about Scritti Politti. Records deconstructing themselves sounds interesting but also sounds like work to listen to (I'm sorta joking but only sorta). Is this album a jam?

It's a total jam.

I am never sure how seriously you should read Green's interest in post-structuralism into his music, but he definitely uses the playful aspects of it to take the piss out of himself and the listener even at the same time as he's making you groove/cry.

I'll pick it up, then!

Would have voted for the amazing _Home of the Brave_ if it had been nominated.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Same. Big Science has never felt to me like a standalone and I had trouble voting for the Reader's Digest version. But I'm glad 11 of you could look past that. I might actually have voted for Mister Heartbreak too if it had made the list.

glad to see Nail placing, anyone who is interested in the studio side of Foetus would be well off seeking out Thaw, and if the more brutal heavy side is what appeals to you, the live official "bootleg" Rife (which is basically Foetus backed by the Swans) is AMAZING. Foetus live (back in the day, not so much now) was a scary intense thing.

Big Science is totally sequenced as its own thing and tbh I prefer those songs in that context.

official version of Rife = double cd MALE.
easier to pick up i suspect.
intense stuff indeed (story re blood & crowd bashing @ london gig buried on another thread)

ive had a running argument w/ former ilxor fluffy bear about whether MALE or RIFE is better. I prefer RIFE, and he is wrong.

totally listened to Damp the other day and yes that ShrunkenMan cover is IMMENSE along with pretty much everything else there but that is late-era foetus so JJ and I are gonna probably fall out ;_;

mind you the early stuff gets better with every listen

the new stuff is fine, i just prefer the direction hes taken with steroid maximus to any of the foetus branded stuff - the newer foetus always sounds a bit forced to me, although yeah there are some gems in there no question

i forgot to mention this yesterday but this

I was dismissive of Pretty Hate Machine at the time because I felt it ripped off The The. NIN did put on some good live shows, but I still prefer The The.

― Fastnbulbous, Tuesday, November 24, 2009 4:43 PM (Yesterday)

totally baffles me. am i missing the comparison here, because i dont hear it at all

meaning the first sentence obv

al jourgensen's The The

can't believe I forgot to vote in this

yeah can me and curtis just make some votes in the thread or what

sure!

actually i would be v v curious as to what you guys would have voted for

sign of the times and double nickels on the dime

guessing those will both be top ten, maybe top five? worried that ilx will snub the minutemen into the top twenty tho

68. New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies [1983] (100 points, 16 votes)

http://www.worldinmotion.net/neworder/discography/albums/1983/PCL.jpg

It was the first album I ever heard by them and is still my favorite by far. In many ways it's their most unique album because they don't sound shackled by their JD roots anymore but at the same time they haven't developed NO pop blueprint yet either. I'd really like for them to make another record like this, where they're basically just fucking around. 'S.T.R.E.E.T.D.A.D.' by Out Hud gives me a bit of a PCL fix.

― Scott Warner (thream), 12. lokakuuta 2006 17:34

I love the record. Why? Because of the way the sloppy playing humanizes the programmed stuff. Because of the way the perfect melodies mesh so well with the loose fiddling with the nascent technology. Because of the hint of optimism that shows up, esp. in light of its predecessor. Because of Steve's frenetic but slightly less tribal drums. Because of the way, to this day, I'm still not sure how it was made, or how these songs came from the same band that made "Movement." Similarly, because the band caught near-death crapping through that live NYC performance recently released on DVD more or less went right back into the studio and came up with something as vibrant and beautiful as "P, C L."

Etc.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), 12. lokakuuta 2006 18:32

another odd memory of that record -- when i got it, it must've been 1986; i would have been 15. i had discovered new order from "low-life," which was their current album at the time. (i heard "the perfect kiss" somewhere, god knows where, and bought the album.) but when i got "power corruption and lies," somehow it felt like i was reaching back into the distant past; somehow i was very aware that i was hearing the document of a band that didn't exist (like that) any more. why was that? it was only three years since "power, corruption and lies" had come out, and if anything i suspect the pop world moved more slowly then. somehow, in my mind i was listening to a document that seemed beamed into the future from some faraway point in new wave history, when in reality it was a pretty contemporary record. as i sunk deeper into goth/new wave stuff, 1981-83 was generally my favorite period, and somehow it seemed so far away, like i was terribly inauthentic to be this kid from portland, oregon who only discovered the music through, like, "head on the door" in 1985.

do kids like this feel this way? will some 15-year old buy M.I.A.'s next album, and then go back and, discovering "arular," consider it some kind of benjaminian angel of history?

(oddly, in much the same way, i still can't help but think of "brotherhood" as "that new new order album," since that's how i thought of it when it came out -- the first of their records i knew about in advance of its release. i was now IN THE KNOW and boy, did i cherish that status.)

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), 12. lokakuuta 2006 19:32

wow, that is way lower than i thought it would be

the empire is crumbing

actually i would be v v curious as to what you guys would have voted for

since I didn't vote and my list will have no bearing on the results I'm just gonna post it here:

(unordered)
Bauhaus - Mask
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
The Chameleons - Strange Times
The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge
The Chameleons - What Does Anything Mean? Basically
The Cure - Disintegration
The Cure - Faith
Depeche Mode - Construction Time Again
Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles
Brian Eno - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks
Brian Eno / David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Eric B. & Rakim - Paid In Full
Michael Jackson - Thriller
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
Joy Division - Closer
Killing Joke - What's THIS For...!
Kraftwerk - Computer World
The Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum
N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Architecture & Morality
The Passions - Thirty Thousand Feet Over China
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Simple Minds - New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
The Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
Spacemen 3 - Sound of Confusion
Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless
Tones on Tail - Pop

I probably would have bothered to order it if I voted

People who did vote, please don't start posting your ballots yet, as that might give off the results. You can post them once the list is finished.

Every 80s New Order album was nominated, so Power, Corruption and Lies's position suffered from serious vote splitting. I still expect a top-15 placement for Substance.

The Chills are great btw, thanks ILX.

totally baffles me. am i missing the comparison here, because i dont hear it at all

― NAKES HAVE THE STAPLES IN THEM (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 25, 2009 4:34 PM (34 minutes ago)

It's true that Ministry is a far more obvious influence on NIN, but listen to Infected again. It's a less obvious, minority opinion for sure.

Crutis, what is your opinion on Double Nickels, y/n/never heard/etc?

67. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes [1983] (101 points, 12 votes)

http://www.bentclouds.com/violentfemmes.jpg

"Blister in the Sun" has gone down a very, very unfortunate path w/r/t cultural connotations.

That said, I'm willing to go on record as believing that that first record is both a classic and a landmark, the most accurate and eloquent expression of geeked-out pissed-off awkward maladjusted unpopular teenaged-boy-dom in the history of recorded music. What will forever boggle my mind is how, over the years, the band was adopted as a novelty act for precisely the sorts of people who should have had the least experience of that phenomenon; no cultural juxtaposition is quite as criminal as hearing "Kiss Off" coming through the window of a frat house rather than a weedy teenager's rusted-out compact car. It's also worth noting, in rockist terms, how utterly on that record was, from the tight, blazing performances to the thoroughgoingly perfect honesty and realness and this is what we're saying and that's just it-ness of it. It's pathetic and it's snotty and defiant about being pathetic. It is basically hip-hop for frustrated, socially irritable suburban kids.

The rest of the catalog wavers steadily downward -- the older they get, the more you're forced to read them as a novelty -- but I'd submit that records like Why Do Birds Sing are worth taking seriously.

― [nabisco], 8. tammikuuta 2002 3:00

"...the band was adopted as a novelty act for precisely the sorts of people who should have had the least experience of that phenomenon; no cultural juxtaposition is quite as criminal as hearing "Kiss Off" coming through the window of a frat house rather than a weedy teenager's rusted-out compact car."

This is very deeply wrong. The point is that the most splendid and muscular king of the prom has felt, thought, and said the same things as do the people on this record. It is everybody's property.

Very good case for at least 5 songs here but I will go with "Prove my Love" for the "AWWWWWW" right before the title is sung.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), 5. marraskuuta 2007 5:22

Great album to have sent to you in the summer of 1983 by your friend who taped them on cassette over the taped Gerald Ford speech he received from going to Boys Nation (I was the alternate and didn't go). This was backed with Fleshtones; other cassette had dB's hits and a selection of songs from Murmur and Reckoning.

Freshman year of college, punk girlz were hanging out in line singing the intro to "Blister in the Sun," I came in with the handclaps, immediately was in with whole punk set for four years.

― Dimension 5ive, 13. marraskuuta 2007 4:21

Crutis, what is your opinion on Double Nickels, y/n/never heard/etc?

I have never heard the Minutemen iirc

I think Violent Femmes must be mostly an American thing...? Wikipedia says that album sold platinum in the US, but the only place I ever remember hearing them is The Crow soundtrack.

i'm American and they're awesome. and "Blister in the Sun" gets played on my local alt-rock radio station as much as like Stone Temple Pilots

i'm American and they're like kryptonite for the ears.

Cool. Violent Femmes is only the second off of my ballot to show up (along with Run-DMC). I voted for a ton of canonical stuff, tho, so it's going to be interesting to see if any of them don't make it.

As far as hearing them, Violent Femmes was a pretty formative album when I was in high school--and that was 94/95. I think that they go through waves of popularity. I'd stumbled onto the album after seeing how many of their songs showed up on KROQ's top 500 list--I think "Blister in the Sun" might have even been #1.

A couple years ago, at Lollapalooza 2006, the Femmes were playing opposite one of Sleater-Kinney's last shows. I'd felt obligated to watch Sleater-Kinney, but the show was boring as hell, so 20 minutes in I ran all the way across Grant Park to catch the last bit of the Femmes' set. One of the best decisions I ever made. They were rockin it, with a full horn section, enthused to be playing for their home town. People were dancing their asses off. It was great.

Album came out in '82, though, according to the band's website: http://www.vfemmes.com/discography.html

thought they were from wisconsin.
xp

Oh, that's weird. AMG, Wikipedia, and discogs.com all say it came out in 1983.

Yeah. The only reason I know that is 'cause I did a Best of '83 thing a couple of years ago and ended up excluding it. At that time, I think wikipedia had it as '82 too. So, who knows. Release dates are so slippery. Acclaimed music has it as '82 as well.

My ballot is looking increasingly "strategic" as this progresses, only one has turned up. And were I entirely true to my teen self, Violent Femmes would have. The debut was my (suburban north american) version of '77 punk. I weaned myself off of hand-me down cassettes of Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull with a single, much worn, copy of this album. Its so much a part of the fabric of those years, yes blared out the windows of my first rusted car before parental curfew, that I seriously wonder how any of us 30 somethings can get critical distance.

xp mizzell: the album had its roots in street busking by the trio on the pedestrian State Street near the U Wisconsin campus in Madison. When I arrived there 20 years later for grad school there were still hopefuls busking on the weekends in the same places.

Hm. I guess they were from Milwaukee, but they were definitely talking about Chicago as their home town at that show--maybe it was just home base for a while.

I grew up in the 80s, and had all the REM, Replacements and Husker Du records. But I never even heard a single song by the Violent Femmes till much later. Nobody listened to them in my New Jersey high school, even the proto-goths/alternative girls who liked Bauhaus and The Cure.

66. Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen [1985] (104 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000NJLPYI.jpg

Although Wendy Smith's angelic voice was sometimes a bit too much for my liking, I'd still say classic. Steve McQueen! And how can you not resist singing along about jumping frogs?

― Stevie Nixed, 27. huhtikuuta 2001 3:00

so did I!

I also did not learn until recently that the line in "Faron Young" is "as obsolete as warships in the Baltic"...(I had thought it was something like "as obsolete as Washington's contacts", whatever the hell that might mean)...

speaking of lines, the whole "turkey-hungry, chicken-free" thing keeps me from voting for "Moving The River"...

were any of you NOT between the ages of 18 and 26 when this record came out?...I have a hard time believing that this could strongly connect with somebody who wasn't college-age at the time, but then again, "kids today" still go through Beatles phases...

― henry s, 22. heinäkuuta 2007 19:27

I really loved 'Steve McQueen' and 'Cars & Girls' .. but I just haven't been able to get into anything else ... I really want to too - because Steve McQueen is 'simply amazing' (a phrase that will undoubtedly show up on the cliches we love to hate thread) - and maybe it's that high standard that's kept me from liking much else...

― dave225 (Dave225), 9. tammikuuta 2003 20:04

This is as British as Violent Femmes is American.

except I'm american and was the only one to have it at number 1.

didn't include violent femmes on my ballot for no reason at all. thought about that in passing yesterday and concluded that they must not have been nominated. i guess i just missed them - this record would have been an easy top 10 finisher for me if i HAD noticed it. anyway both nabisco and eephus otm up there - it's about as perfect a summary of what it feels like to be young and weird (and horny and pissed and whatever else goes along with that) as anyone's ever come up with. at least as good as surfer rosa in that regard. and the tunes are great, and the mostly acoustic sound is rich & warm, and they're always doing interesting little things in the margins of their tunes, making them feel real and alive and happening-right-now. there is no better feeling that music can provide than being 16 and singing along to "add it up" REALLY FUCKING LOUD as you drive around town late at night with a carload of other teenagers. unless it's doing the same thing to "bohemian rhapsody", i dunno.

and i'm so damn glad that big science made it! a top 10 record for me, one i didn't get into until a couple years after punky teen angst stuff like the violent femmes. i bought it for the cover i think, and it baffled me almost entirely. there were parts i liked, but i just didn't get it. i didn't understand how anyone could like it or consider it "good music". but i couldn't quite let it go, either. over a period of a year i kept going back to it, playing it every few months out of perversity or curiosity or maybe just the hope that i hadn't wasted $7.99... and one day it just clicked with me. it no longer sounded like a bunch of weird art abstractions, it sounded like music - lovely, eerie, ethereal music. even sexy, in creepy & cerebral sort of way. the sort of music a cold clear night would listen to when there weren't any people around to bother it. in its ultimately rewarding inaccessibility, it became the template for how i'd approach music for years to come, always looking for the thing that seemed hardest to grasp. a bunch of folks seem to view it as a couple big hits and some filler, but i think it's an almost perfect album from start to finish. "big science", "walking and falling", "born never asked" and "let x=x/it tango" are just as as strong as "o superman" and "from the air".

ok heres my ballot plz recalculate VERILY, IT'S THE ILX 1980s ALBUM POLL VOTING THREAD! Voting ends on Sunday, November 22nd. thx

oh wow this thread is already going!!! ack! ten a day is WAY too many, i will never be able to keep up with anything. But thanks again Tuomas for doing this, it looks like a really interesting list so far and I'm looking forward, when I have the time and fast Internet, to checking out some of this stuff, because so far I only really know one or two things on the list. Big Science is so great but I don't have the energy right this second to explain why. The way she says, "Thanks for showing me your swiss, ar-my KNI-EEF!" probably sums it up - it's this bizarre intersection of affected art-school oddity, robotic distortion, and a pure human vulnerability at the bottom of it. And that's really just the SOUND I'm responding to - I've never really gotten around to understanding/responding to this whole thing as an art piece or product of its time/scene, etc. - there's just something in Anderson's delivery that really clicks with me. Also feels weirdly contemporary, and not just because autotune makes everything sound kinda like this - - - the same overlap of robot and beating heart shows up in "Umbrella" for example.

Well. Looks like we're going to have to start over.